Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

When I was 16 I was given an old On The Edge magazine, OTE 39. Aside from a fantastic bio of big Ron, the best article in it was "you want to climb the nose in a day?". This was both a how to guide, and an aspirational peice. The same day that I was given this magazine, I was happy to climb Tiger at burbage south, which, if you know the problem may give you an impression of how far removed my ability or ambition was from being able to climb the nose at all, let alone in 24 hours. In spite of its lack of immediate relevance to me at the time, the article obviously struck a chord as I remembered to tear out the pages and bring them with me. Dan pointed out to me that the number of pitches we were doing per day had increased, from 8, to 12, to 19. With this observation combined with the seed planted years before, it became inevitable what we would try next. After considering almost every point over the 24 hour clock, Dan began climbing the nose at 0320. Climbing by a full mo...

It seems that a lot of climbing areas have trios of routes to aspire to. There's the Yorkshire limestone triple crown, three bold aretes at Stanage Plantation, the alpine trilogy of f8b+'s... similarly, yosemite has three long adventure routes, all graded 5.11c (as in the previous post, trying to convert this grade into British money will not give an accurate indication of what these routes are about.) First up was the Rostrum. 8 pitches of sustained and strenuous crack climbing, with a few cruxes and two off-widths thrown in for good measure. We again played paper scissors stone for first lead. I was initially exuberant at losing to Dan, as it meant he would lead the crux and both off-widths. This glee quickly disappeared when I checked the topo and realised that actually all the cruxes abnd off-widths were on my pitches. I made Dan promise to lead the second offwidth, to give me a break. The crux went swiftly, the harder offwidth was like watching a wild animal trying to es...

The Bachar-Yerian, for those who don't know, is regarded as the classic hard frightener of California, if not the usa. Despite some effort, Dan and I did not climb this. Which came as quite a surprise to us, given the bold wall climbing we've done and the handy supertopo grade table making it sound about French 6c. This goes to show how wrong I can be. Persuaded by the guide that the sun would be on the wall from mid morning, we decided an early start would not provide any better conditions. The sun was just coming onto the wall when we arrived at 11.30, having evidently wasted the primo conditions of the day. Dan won paper scissors stone and took the first pitch. He split a tip (more a surgical gash than a split) and had to lower off. Using Dan's beta I got through the crux and kept going through the dangerous part, which felt a good E6 in its own right. I lowered off the second pitch, having climbed down after scaring myself high above a bolt, lost in a sea pc knobs. Som...

After suffering various flight delays, and difficulties in us communicating, Katy and Ryan picked me up from LAX, where they had landed several hours previously. Sure, they initially drove off without me, thinking I was in Pete, vicky and Paul's car, but they promptly turned around on discovering that I had been temporarily abandoned. I had the pleasure of meeting Adam 8c Jee in the car also, a fellow mental health nurse who I had heard about but never met. After a nocturnal shift behind the wheel, Ryan delivered us to the wild camping spot for the needles. Jet lagged and sleep deprived, the other 3 occupants of the car collapsed into a 16 hour slumber. Jee was keen to climb with me the following day. We started with the 2 pitch classic Thin Ice (5.10b). This went smoothly, Jee even seemed to enjoy the odd jam, but avoided the thrutchy b-chimney using sport climbers laybacking and knee bars. The next route, the Don Juan Wall (5.11b), features 5 pitches of crack climbing. Jee cop...

Sat on the coach to Heathrow, it struck me that I hadn't felt so nervous since I took my driving test, ten years ago to the month. It took me some time to identify the source of this anxiety. Sure, I was worried about finding someone to climb with, staying injury free, coping with loneliness, having enough money, and turning out of LAX onto an 8 lane highway in an automatic, but even the sum of these did not explain how I was feeling. More than these, for the next 9 months I am a full-time climber. I have no job and no fixed abode. Obviously the best solution for this upheaval is to actually go climbing. I headed to yosemite and befriended David in camp 4. David is a softly spoken physicist from Seattle. Reserved, intelligent and astute, he also makes these mini-shrieks when he's trying hard, acting as a cue to increase encouragement. Climbing with David, it soon became clear that I am Shit on granite.I have a lot to learn. I pull too hard with my arms, but if I put any more ...